Perth International Arts festival expects to draw more than 500,000 people.

The Perth International Arts Festival starts today featuring more than 1,000 artists from around the world.

The event is in its 62nd year, making it the longest running arts festival in the southern hemisphere.

Artistic Director Jonathan Holloway said more than 500,000 people are expected to attend festival events over the next three weeks.

"It's by far the largest per capita attendance, certainly in Australia and the southern hemisphere but probably in the world," he said.

"I can't think of another festival that has that scale of attendance.

"The audiences are so warm and so generous and so strong that every artist who comes to the festival leaves having fallen in love with this place and so they spread the word, so it keeps rolling, it keeps getting bigger."